11 August 2017

GI's for the Ardennes Campaign

Aside from Australia, the United States was the only major country I had not obtained troops for playing Chain of Command. I suspect that Australian troops will evidentially get done as I have some in the lead pile for a while and I certainly have lots of jungle terrain.

The US however presented a challenge as I wanted to do them in winter uniform, as I needed someone to confront my winter uniformed Volksgrenadiers/Panzergrenadiers. In 20mm/1/72 winter uniformed US miniatures hardly exist aside from a very limited range from TQD. Turning to plastics was the only option, both Italeri and Revell have troops in winter uniform but the Revell miniatures just did not fit with the TQD. Fortunately for me, I had arranged for Dan Dunbar to paint the the figures and he is quite good with conversions as well as painting. Thankfully he was able to produce what I needed from the Italeri box as well as using some miniatures from the PSC Heavy Weapons box. The only real problem left was the lack of any miniatures with BAR's but Dan was able to hack up some ESCI figures and somehow another graft them on the Italeri. The man is a genius.

I received the troops several months ago but I hate basing so it took a while to get to them. Last week I said enough was enough and just did them. I use Elmer's Wood Putty coloured with raw umber as the base followed when wet with some sand. I then washed the bases with VMC black wash and then dry brushed this with Celestra Grey. This gave me exactly that brown-grey tone that I wanted. I then used Woodland Scenics Snow mixed with PVA glue for the snow. I wanted a white thick snow so there mixture was quite thick, the more glue you use the more the snow will look like ice rather then snow. The trick here is to paint the part of the base where you plan to apply the snow mixture white, or it will look grey. I probably will add some winter tufts from Army Painter.

I put together 2 different types of platoons as well as numerous supports. I have yet to paint up any motorized transport, AFV's or Guns. Dan did paint up some gun crews for me so they are all ready.

Rifle Platoon (+1)

The Complete Platoon

Headquarters with Carbine armed Lieutenant as well as a SMG armed Sergeant with a Bazooka Team

Squad One with an SMG armed Corporal as we as a 3 man BAR Team as well as a 8 man Rifle team

The BAR team is made up of a 2 men, one firing as well as a loader and 1 rifleman

All the Riflemen are equipped with M1 Garands

Infantry Supports

Up front is a Medic and an Adjutant both list 1

2 man Bazooka Team (list 2)

2 man Sniper Team (list 3)

FO with off table 81mm Mortar (list 4)

0.30 MMG Team with 5 crew

60 mm Mortar Team with 5 crew (list 3)

0.50 HMG with 5 crew (list 5)

Armored Rifle Platoon (+4)

This is a platoon with integrated Heavy Weapons teams

Lieutenant and Sergeant both armed with carbines as well Headquarters Squad made up of M1 Garand armed Sergeant as well as 7 rifleman.

Squads 1 and 2 with Sergeant and 10 riflemen all armed with M1's as well a GI with a SMG

Wow, they came up a treat with the basing, what is your terrain made of? Is that lose powder? Looks like there are base imprints on it, very effective looking, have you seen my WIP winter Fallschirmjagers? If I ever get them finished I will need to do some terrain for them.

The terrain is actually the Cigarbox plush winter mat. They are nice mats but this is more cream coloured than white, I played with the temperature settings a bit on photo editing software to make it look white. I think this was a problem for them as I see that this one is not for sale anymore.

Wargame foundary makes 20mm US Inf in Winter gear. I have some on the figures. These figure are sculpted by the Perry Borthers. Here is the link to the figures. https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/20mm-world-war-2/products/ww220040-us-infantry-in-winter-kit

Great work John. I have wanted to do Ardennes for years, but as with so many projects, have yet to get around to it. For me, contemplating winter basing is a big deterrent and I always end up deciding to paint something else, it seems.